Café Barock: Händel <3 Italia

Handel <3 Italy – music from the palaces of Rome

The concert is centered around the music composed by Georg Friedrich Händel in 1707 in Rome. Handel, who was in his twenties at the time, had just moved from Germany to Rome, where the Pope had forbidden the performance of the opera. This led to the creation of numerous cantatas and oratorios – almost 40 cantatas and oratorios are known from Handel alone from that year. The majority of these were written for chamber ensemble, to be performed, for example, in the palace of Marquis Ruspoli, one of Handel's Roman patrons. 

The texts Handel used in his cantatas are often tragic love stories based on classical mythology. Cardinals who were influential in Rome, such as Pietro Ottoboni and Benedetto Pamphili, worked as librettists. Both were also patrons of Arcangelo Corelli, he dedicated his famous trio sonatas opus 2 and 4 to these cardinals. Corelli's and Handel's paths also crossed in Rome, where Corelli worked, for example, in 1707 as the first violinist of Handel's oratorio Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno. The concert brings together the music of these two composers who were influential in Rome, focusing on Handel's early Italian cantatas, rarely heard in Finland.

Performers:

Johanna Isokoski, soprano

Katariina Malmberg, baroque oboe

Kaisa Ruotsalainen, baroque violin

Anna Pulakka, baroque cello

Sanni Antikainen, harpsichord

Program:

Handel – Corelli

Universum

16.10.2022 at 15.00

Voluntary fee, duration 1,5 h